Cradle To Cradle To Washington

Forbes ^ | 15 December 2004 | Andrew T. Gilles

[Lorianne]

Last month's U.S. election results elicited the predictable laments from the enviro crowd. "The re-election of President George W. Bush means that polluters will enjoy four more years of lax enforcement," moaned the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But the political winds don't seem to ruffle one prominent environmentalist: William McDonough, a 53-year-old architect and man dubbed a "hero for the planet" by Time magazine in 1999. "We don't focus on politics, because they come and go," McDonough said in a phone interview last week, adding, "Republicans are very attracted to what we do."

Indeed, last January, McDonough was back at the White House, where he had previously accepted an environmental award from President Bill Clinton, expounding his ideas on ecologically sustainable design to a meeting of government officials arranged by Bush's Office of Management and Budget. "We've met with many of the departments and agencies many times since," McDonough says.

The subject of those meetings is what McDonough calls "Eco-effectiveness" and "Cradle to Cradle Design." In short, it's an effort to refashion architecture and industry so that they emulate the ecosystems found in the natural world.

An example: A regular old building acts much like a machine, powered by a central furnace and releasing sewage and other waste out through pipes. By contrast, an eco-effective building mimics a tree, drawing power from solar energy and using plant systems to purify effluents into clean water. "Waste equals food," goes a Cradle to Cradle mantra, suggesting a world where everything industry churns out can either be composted, reused or recycled into something else.

Loopy? Maybe, but some very big businesses don't seem to think so. As reported by Forbes (see: "Fabric Softener"), McDonough and his two firms, William McDonough & Partners and MBDC, have worked on projects for clients such as BP (nyse: BP - news - people ), BASF (nyse: BF - news - people ), Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ), Nike (nyse: NKE - news - people ), and Visteon). Perhaps most famously, McDonough advised Ford on how to green its gigantic Rouge manufacturing facility in Dearborn, Mich.

And, as the meeting at the White House last January suggests, there's also plenty of appeal for government. Why? While McDonough is not reflexively anti-regulation, a key Cradle to Cradle tenet is that regulation itself is evidence of design failure. In other words, if you can build a factory that emits nothing harmful, there's no need for heavy regulation.

A good chunk of today's environmental law, McDonough argues, doesn't aim for this ideal. Instead, he says, it sets out to make something less bad--reducing pollution and so on--rather than encouraging a fundamental redesign to turn the bad thing into something good.

Again, that notion has a fairly dreamy ring to it, but McDonough is quick to fire off an illustration of how it can work. In September 2002, MBDC partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Solid Waste to find ways to reduce the plastics and other undesirable layers of waste found in packaging of shipments from online retailers. They issued a design challenge in March of 2003 and by October of that year had a winner: a collaboration between Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), the Allan Schluger Company and Shorewood Packaging, a unit of International Paper (nyse: IP - news - people ).

Their product, called the "Bevelope," can be adjusted to accommodate everything from DVD cases to thick software manuals and is made from recycled paperboard that can be recycled again or composted. Shorewood Packaging says big customers now using the Bevelope are Microsoft and Philip Morris, a unit of Altria Group (nyse: MO).

McDonough has also been working with the U.S. Air Force on assessing chemicals used at aircraft and missile factories. "It's an odd place for us to be working," McDonough acknowledges, "but the idea is that the whole world is cradle to cradle, so it involves everything."

Everything? Not a bad business proposition

[Lorianne]

I've heard this guy speak. He's not from the same mold as other environmentalists, he looks at things differently, more wholistically, including from the business angle. I'm not surprised he's NOT a die-hard Bush basher.

[Lorianne]

William McDonough is an internationally renowned designer and one of the primary proponents and shapers of what he and his partners call 'The Next Industrial Revolution.'

http://www.mcdonough.com/#

[beef]

Sounds like one of the few who are out there looking for ways to actually improve the environment, and not use it as an excuse to push socialism or the pantheist/deep ecology agendas. I applaud that.

[wildcatf4f3]

Yes the man is creative which is the opposite of our reactionary leftwing dinosaur brethern. A friend of mine was bemoaning the destruction of a forest for railroad ties a hundred and some years ago. I asked where this was and he told me. "Why thats solid forest around there , I was just there", i said. "Yes it grew back", he replied.



"So whats the beef?"
"Well they completely clearcut it"
"But it grew back"
"Thats not the point"


This enlightened man drives a Lincoln.


There is no end to the blind ideological blather from them. They legislate airpumps and EGR and Lower compression to reduce car emissions. This sort of works but then a CREATIVE person perfects electronic fuel injection and all that stuff becomes un-neccesary. Look under the hood of a 95 and up car - there aren't any emission controls. The exact amount of fuel is injected for a stoichimetric ratio and power is achieved with minimal exhaust. The traditional ecoleftist believes - and this is the point - that history has ended. That our job is to manage what has already been created not to create something new.

Challenge: When is the last time you heard of anyone successfully commiting suicide by sitting in their car with the garage door closed and the engine running?

Bet you haven't. They wake up about 6 hrs later with a headache and thats all.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Libertina]

Carry_Okie Ping. Do you know this person? Or of him?

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[Carry_Okie]

I don't know him, but I've heard of him. If you look at that list of his clients, they're all die hard green companies or government. His work comes at a price, which one should expect. It's my hope that he can do more than subsist off largesse while doing this so that his better ideas can propagate faster. I wouldn't doubt that banks and building codes are often in his way.